An estimated 20,000 protesters rallied in the capital city Chisinau on September 27, calling for the resignation of the country's president over the disappearance of $1 billion from three of the country's banks.

Vyacheslav Nikonov, a pro- Kremlin member of Russia’s lower house of parliament, has alleged that the U.S. space agency timed the announcement about the discovery of water on Mars to distract the world’s attention from Vladimir Putin’s UN speech.

The head of government of Russia’s eastern Perm region, Gennady Tushnolobov, has filed a complaint with Russia’s Constitutional Court contending that the ban on food imports violates his rights to a decent life. (In Russian)

In 2001, Perm-36 founded a museum on the territory of a former penal colony to record the political repression that was perpetrated on the site. Perm’s Ministry of Culture has since seized control of the museum, designated its original owners as “foreign agents,” and recast the exhibit from a state-sanctioned point of view. (In Russian)

Preliminary hearings have begun in the case of Alexander Alexandrov and Yevgeny Yerofeyev, who were captured in eastern Ukraine in May 2015. They face charges of "organizing, participating in, and carrying out aggression against Ukraine,” and “transferring firearms to and assisting a terrorist organization." (In Russian)